Posted
by
Hemos
on Wednesday July 21, 1999 @10:21AM
from the thinner-faster-better dept.

Krakus Irus wrote in with the alert that Apple has released the specs on the new Powerbook G3. Up to 400 mhz, USB, firewire, 20% thinner then the previous machines and two pounds lighter. 14.1 display-it looks nice. What we're waiting on is the news about the new consumer portable-that will be coming out today. Check the rumours about the new consumer book. Update: 07/21 03:19 by H: It's been announced. The new iBook-and it looks /really/ nice. Comes out in Sept. at 1599$US.

Actually, according to SPEC95 benchmarks, megahertz for megahertz PPCs are slightly faster on integer and Pentium IIs/IIIs are only slightly faster on floating point. They're really comparible now. However, that's desktop Pentiums. The portable versions are notoriously slower for most tasks while the PPCs are the same chip in both desktop and portable versions due to their low power consumption. On the other hand, Pentium IIIs have MMX and SSE, which can give the better performance on some games that someone else mentioned. The iBook, however, has one of the best portable 2D/3D chipsets out there built to help make up that difference. Also, though it's Lord knows how long from finally coming out, the G4 series of chips will have Altivec for pure MMX/SSE crushing power. That's an irrelevant side issue, but I just had to get that jab in there.

Apple didn't get Yellow Dog any specs that Be doesn't already have. The people at Yellow Dog examined the hardware, probably reverse engineered some of it, and then wrote the code. Be's engineers are unwilling to do that. And they don't even have to! All they have to do is look at the source code to Yellow Dog Linux and port it to BeOS/PPC. But they won't.

On the surface, the Be engineers appear like the good guys, being victimized by Microsoft and Apple. The truth, however, is that they're a bunch of pompous asses with quite an attitude. Witness their FAQ about installing on a logical partition: http://www-classic.be.c om/support/qandas/faqs/faq-0462.html [be.com]. In it, they say that because only Linux and OS/2 support installation on an extended partition, that they don't need to support it because the only successful OS (Windows) doesn't support it. What they don't want to admit is that if they expect people to use BeOS along side other OS's, then you damn better support logical parititions otherwise some people might not be able to add BeOS. Timur Tabi Remove "nospam_" from email address

I know you're tongue's in your cheek, but I bet you'll look long and hard before you find a faster and more flexible networking implementation than Open Transport (which uses Mentat's Streams technology). It is, in a word, awesome.

What? Do you want to crack open your laptop and add a 4 port serial card so you can run your BBS from your laptop? It's a cheap, fast laptop that is designed for students, people on the run, etc..

A student typing their thesis in a library doesn't want to carry an kind of peripherals around, and a person on the go just wants to carry their laptop, not a plethora of USB/Fireware/SCSI/Parallel devices around.. yeesh...

Actually, the speed difference is going to be apparent from more than just the video card specs. It's got a pig of a system bus (66 MHz), a relatively small L2 cache, and a tiny amount of physical memory.

12.1 inch display? did apple just set back in time about 4 years? i beta tested laptops at dell last year, and 14.1 was the standard, with the 15 inch inspiron 7000 the premium.

Two problems with this. First is the price. 12" is cheaper than 14". Apple's pro line has 14". They wanted this to be within the reach of the average consumer. A 14" monitor would've added to the price.

More importantly, this is designed to be a small machine. They're promoting this as the machine you take with you on the schoolbus, up into the tree house, on the couch, etc. A bigger display means a heavier iBook. 12" is plenty big for what it needs to do.

they also mention playing multiplayer games. no way you'll get openGL support for this box's hardware, so you better be into bridge.

Nonsense. The iBook has a high-end ATI portable graphics chipset, and the MacOS has OpenGL support built in. At the keynote, Bungie showed a kick-ass new game called "Halo" that had some real-time animated OpenGL scenes that I thought were very impressive. This thing'll be able to run anything existing PowerMacs and iMacs can now, and that includes all the big games: Quake III, Starcraft (Brood Wars soon), Myth II, and others. Steve Jobs is making a big push for games on the Mac, and standardizing on OpenGL is a big piece of that push.

Smoke grey is generally used for prototypes. The G3 b/w was seen in purple/grey for a while, but the actual units are blue and white. They're highly unlikely to sell grey iBooks, but it makes them pretty easy to distinguish.

If you don't like the iMac, you won't like its portable kin. Duh. Guess what...Mr. Jobs probably wasn't talking to you.

I've got a FINE idea...DON'T BUY ONE. That way we won't have to hear you whining all the time about how often you transfer data on slow, clunky, error-prone 3.5" floppies.

Get a ZIP drive. Get a SuperDrive. Get an ORB drive. They're hot pluggable, they weigh about as much as a paperback novel, and you get several orders of magnitude more storage capacity.

If you're a consultant who works a lot with needlessly paranoid companies who are more concerned about ludicrous security concerns than with efficient problem solving, well this isn't the laptop for you. I don't think Apple will miss those four customers.

To rename a file in the Mac: click on the name under the icon, and type in the new name. Your friend must type *real* slow.;) While in the application, go to file, the click on save as, then type in the new name. 15 minutes? Did he RTFM?

No amount of RAM or money will make a Windows notebook run Photoshop as fast as a Lombard series Powerbook. The desktop G3 at 400MHz runs Photoshop 35% faster then a 500MHz Pentium III, and the 400MHz G3 powerbook is only a little slower then the desktop, while current PC notebooks are a lot slower then a PIII500.

Actually, by looking at Apple's pages on AirPort [apple.com], they will not be that expensive.

But anyhow, it seems that AirPort will play nicely with many other wireless networking products, the 802.11 being a standard and all.

And what is even better, a short search on AltaVista for Linux and IEEE 802.11 showed that some projects are already in place building Linux drivers for the 802.11 WLANs. Check out AbsoluteValue's page on it [absoval.com].

OK, so you don't want to pay $3600. I can't blame you at all for that. But you have 3 choices at 3 price points, with approximately $1000 between each one of them:

1: An iBook for $1600

2: A Lombard 333 for $2500

3: A Lombard 400 with DVD for $3600

I'd like to see a few more options in there, too, but that pretty much hits all the price points I can think of. The Lombards only have one PC Card slot, and the iBooks none, but both systems have USB, 10/100 Ethernet and 56k modems already on-board - so it's not that big an issue, I think. I would like to see a $2000 Lombard with, say, a 266 or 300 MHz processor and maybe a 13" screen, and a $4000 Lombard with a 15" screen, but I'm nitpicking. When my 3400 at home runs out of gas (I clocked it up to 270MHz, but it's starting to wheeze on stuff like Office 98), I'll probably snag an iBook by then. It'll have the same resolution as the 3400 (12" 800x600), with much better speed and battery life. Nice road machine.

Sure, the computer is quite basic and lacking in some areas (32 megs of ram, WHAT?). But I'd have to disagee about the speed. The G3 is much faster than most people think and 300mhz is fast even when compared to the newest PIII.

I personally love it, but not for it's features. I got sold by watching the webcast. Get this, Steve had two iBooks going at once. One had an acceleronmeter connected to it, and one had software for reading data from it. Steve set up a wireless internet server on the the iBook with the accelerometer and connected to it from his own, wirelessly. Then he got this guy to hold the book and jump off a 25' platform into an airbag. Steve's book captured all the accelerometer results and showed them live on the Jumbotron. All wireless, auninterupted, using one AirPort.

How #!@)#@ stupid do you have to be to not be able to figure out renaming files on a Mac?

Your CS friend isn't qualified for a McJob, much less anything in the high-tech industry if he can't figure that one out. Fer crying out loud, you simply click to select the icon, and click a second time directly on the words. That's where Windows got its cloned behaviour. Geez, the only way I can see you having a problem is if you tried to name a file with a colon in it -- that's the Mac's path seperator, and it just gets replaced with a dash.

Perhaps your "friend" is actually yourself. You seem to display an amazingly vocal ignorance about the actual workings of the OS. Why don't you sit down with it for a few hours without TRYING to find things to hate about it.

That would be my complaint too. It seems like the OS is just a toy with no real complexity. It's nice to have a happy smily interface but it's extremely necessary to have something that can flick a switch to make it complex. The whole idea of the mac goes against my grain: just sit back and let the computer think for you. For example I have a problem with compiling the linux kernel (2.3.6) with the e2compr patch for it so that I can do compression. I have tried something it didn't work, so I tried something else, still didn't work. Did I go crying to mommy when it didn't work? nope.

I think it just hides things and makes the problems just glazed over. I want to change anything about the hardware or the OS and if quality is lesser well than too bad. I would rather trade 10Mhz of speed for 2,100% better configurability.

You know, I'm not just being reactionary here, and I kind of liked the iMac when it first came out, but I found that the reason all the pictures of it were taken from the side - they're hideous from the front. Those grey stripes, bleah. I have to say that personally, I would like more creative case designs, but the iBook looks even worse than the iMac - early 70s-style design, icky colors, and not that much to redeem it.

I dunno, it just seems to me that these new macs violate all known laws of tasteful design.

No, you won't. You'll learn to form a lot of opinions about "The Way Things Ought To Be", but you won't learn a damned thing about computers.

You might as well be using a console, plugging in various cartridges: "here's Photoshop, here's SmoochyGoo, here's BaubleBlast!, here's Ye_Olde_PC_Game_Port. I don't really do _anything_ with the OS, or the API, or the shell. I just run programs, and that's the way it _ought_ to be!"

Go right ahead. And smoke some crack while you're at it, that'll fit right in with the whole "entertain-me" mentality.

something like the iPowerbook or something I'm guessing.... wonder if it'll fail like the eMate... i hope not, Apple makes nice notebooks and i could use a new one (and i don't like the qality of the current 999 notebook jobs)

Yes this is quite old news. I happen to have bought one of these 400Mhz monsters about a month ago. The article says it has firewire support. No it has PC Card support and you can buy a firewire card. This is nothing new and to comment on the last post. OS X can not run on a powerbook so I hear. At any rate it is a solidly awesome computer. But of course since I just bought this, in the tradition of my curse, they will probably come out with a 300GHz G16 tomorrow and it will probably have 134TB of memory and a GOOGLEBYTE Drive. Things always advance so fast immediately after I buy something. *sigh*

Ok Mr. Hacker who knows exactly where every key is. When using a Sun keyboard where is the ~, how about control and caps lock, or the "Meta" keys? It isn't your standard "101"or "104" keyboard. Sometimes legends are good.

They are tricky on the main page of the description. The laptop "can" have FireWire via the PC Card slots, but it doesn't have it on the machine itself. Check out the specs link for a less spin-doctored listing.

They added a kernel task that watches for pauses in typing and mousing, and manages the low power mode of the CPU on a millisecond granularity. Lots of peripherals and constant HD access will hurt performance, but "normal use" like word processing and web surfing will be awesome.

Probably the biggest thing Steve Jobs has brought to Apple is an all-or-nothing marketing style. He takes big strides, not looking back to see whether people follow, but to see where computers *should* be going.

Dropping the floppy drive, adopting USB, the iMac design, MacOS X based on real UNIX, and now AirPort and the iBook. Whether you agree with his decision or not, you have to admit that it causes a strong reaction.

Of course many Mac enthusiasts are happy to hang on his every whim, but even those that don't still appreciate that he's done alot for the company and product line.

Personally, I think computers are reaching the point where the car did so many years ago -- they are quite functional, but people want more than a black or beige box with pretty much standard components. They want A/C, AM/FM/CD, Power Windows, and they want something that *draws* your eye.

Even if you don't like the look of the iMac or iBook, you know that you'll be seeing them all over from now on -- and you'll recognize them instantly. Consumers like the Nike swoosh, McDonalds fries, and they'll like the iBook, even if you don't.

Q. Can I create an AirPort network in a classroom? A. Yes. With AirPort-enabled iBook computers and an AirPort Hardware Access Point, you can create a wireless network in your classroom. You can also add more access points to provide coverage for your entire school.

Someone else was asking about getting a neiborhood T1 and sharing with these things, I'd say that's a yes.

Also, the fact that an Apple tech can remove the CD-ROM drive, and that they say there is "currently" no DVD upgrade makes me think that it might be possible, if not from Apple from a third party.

My chief qualification to comment on Ease of Use: I am the world's least intuitive person when it comes to computers, and regularly whine that things on-screen are either totally ambiguous, genuine non-sequiturs, or are written in a language I don't understand. (I exaggerate only slightly.)

At the same time, I have eventually wrestled Linux onto three different PCs, and the process has varied from gut-wrenching with old Slackware to "Whoah! That's it?" with Mandrake Linux.

Mandrake 6.0 (I have't used RedHat 6.0 but it should be about the same) autodetected my hardware, asked understandable questions, etc. My knowledge has been slowly increasing, but not as quickly as the various install tools have improved.

By contrast, when I installed Win98 on my mom's PC, it took three ridiculous days of aborted installs and crashes followed by restarts, followed by shouting and curses. So maybe a better question is whether *any* operating system runs easily on a PC.

I've not installed BeOS to comment... just want to point out that ease is relative, and if your alternative is Windows or NT, Linux might be the easier install.

It might be only 32, but as with the iMac a lot of places that you buy them from will throw in another 32 to make it a somewhat more acceptable 64. I too don't really agree with 32 ram and a 3.2 gig hd. Apple has been to stingy with ram and HD when they need to realize that it makes a mac a lot better to have the extra ram... hell that's the same with any computer.

The reason that Linux was able to be ported to the G3s is that people reverse engeneered the specs of the motherboard. Be Inc. didnt want to do that, because they are a comercial company, and only wanted to rely on officcial specs. also, if they had simply reverse engeneered the MB, apple could change the MB design at any time, and the OS would be unable to function on that system. JLG didnt want to have this happen, so he decided to not support BeOS on the G3s --David BeOS user

> Using a Mac can clue you, as a programmer, > into some good User Interface ideas.

Ah, right. Like the idea that using a menu should block every running task. Like the idea that moving files to and from multiple volumes should require three and four steps to accomplish. Like the idea that windows should be resizeable from exactly one corner. Like the idea that using one window from one process should require raising _EVERY_ window owned by that process. Like the idea that mouse and keyboard bindings are hardcoded values in the environment.

Excuse, but I don't need any of those clues. In fact I'm doing my best to ensure that I never go anywhere near that kind of trash.

How can I be polite about this? No offense, but some of us consider your brand of captive user interface to be just about the worst combination of attributes ever expressed on a bitmap display.

This is way too funny. I care enough about design to "optimize Perl code", but since I don't appreciate translucent orange plastic, I obviously have no taste.

That's such a brilliant coup; it's like the guy in a clown suit strutting around like a high-fashion snob, and getting away with it. I mean, these are people who would undoubtedly appreciate the "taste" and "design" of pink toenail polish with sparkles, and they're looking down their long noses at people who see beauty in good engineering and hard work, but don't care about superficiality.

Apple must truly be the poster child of this new generation of idiots.

The question is whether the hub is smart enough to route everything correctly if you just plug the ethernet hub into the wireless hub and start plugging in computers. I don't know the ins and outs of ethernet topologies, but there are several conceivable configurations. The wireless hub could be plugged into a 56k connection, and thus the ethernet hub would be "downstream," or the ethernet hub could be plugged into a net router, in which case it would be "upstream." The question is whether everything would work correctly either way, or if it would require a specific configuration to set up. There's also a question of whether Joe Sixpack will know to buy such a hub. There are a lot of hubs out there, and a lot of it looks pretty cryptic. I would be pretty intimidated if I were a non-technical user. Built-in hub abilities would allow Apple to control the configuration more, and make life easier for the end user that doesn't care what goes on in the little flying saucer.

Yeah, durable simple computers...nothing to break or malfunction...where's the appeal in that? If I can't magically be fixed by you when you break it, you can't look like a big computer wizard in front of your friends, and we wouldn't want that would we?

Oddly, the only ones I could find with an AMD K6-III and a 14" screen were in the $1800 range, not the $1599 range apple was shooting for. But even granting you that point:

With the Rage Mobility chip? With Wireless networking being only $100 option? With the neat design (no latch, it opens like a cell phone. Not the color, if I get one I'm painting it black and maybe put a Merciful Release symbol on it....) With a cool little built-in handle? I'm sorry, say what you want about the color but the no-latch design and the handle are things I'd _love_ to see in their pro series...

Did you look at the full specs of all the laptops? To say that there are laptops out there with those screens in that price range is very misleading considering the other cool features this machine has.

---Warning: Impending Rant--- I'm getting sick and tired of the minorities in the Linux, Windows, OS/2, Amiga, Purple-Assed Baboon, And Mac comunities that do a knee-jerk response of disliking anything outside their community. It's ridiculous.

We are supposed to be intelligent, logical people the design and support (well some of us) software and hardware. Can't we look at this for what it is? Just like the iMac, this is supposed to be a laptop that your Mom will use. Not you, your Mom. Does your mom need the highest res and biggest (physically) screen? Mine doesn't. Do you reallly think, honestly and truely that Apple didn't do some market research about this? Come on, they've rested their entire bussiness future on the four product lines. Do you really think they are that dumb?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that just because (for example) Amiga does something doesn't mean it's bad. It may be good for that community, or for even the larger geek community or it might be bad. Before going off half-cocked and lambasting it, check your facts. Make sure you understand the market it's in, etc.

Sorry, that was my regularly scheduled rant.

For the record, I don't consider myself part of any "community." I don't feel any one OS is good for everything. I've used Amigas considerably, use Windows for my job, have a Mac with Linux installed at home....

I found the imacs looked nice on TV and everything, but once I saw one in real life I was less than impressed. I'll assume the ibooks look pretty much the same IRL. The only reason you guys like it so much is because you spend all your time in grey cubicles. Go visit the Big Room sometime. I wish they would make something for the non-rainbow color crowd.. like a shiny metallic case.. now THAT would be cool.

Apple does have a "netboot" feature built into iMacs that allow remote booting. I wonder if that's true of the iBook too? If so, perhaps it would be possible to boot off the wireless network. That would be so cool.

> Reliable, user-friendly tools are what computers > are SUPPOSED to be.

Like hell they are. Computers are "SUPPOSED" to perform massive logical functions in a reasonably finite period of time. Nowadays a massive portion of that logical functionality is spent actively destroying the user's experience: by creating a captive interface that restricts efficiency.

These days people _think_ they're "using a computer". In reality, they're experiencing little more than a canned, interactive slideshow. They stare stupidly at it, and because SO LITTLE effort is expected of them, they are pleased. Of COURSE they like it! Why not just put them in front of a TV and tell them they're doing "work"? Wouldn't _anybody_ like to be told such a thing?

It's all done in the name of "user-friendliness", of course, just as you've justified it. I'm just calling a spade a spade; it's none of my business how you choose to use your computer.

You can see some other ones here [mackido.com]. They're a bit more positive, and detailed.

Some of your points are well taken (modal menus are a horrible idea). Others (like resizing only from one corner) are quibbles. Note that some of us consider "your" (making a gross overgeneralization) brand of fragmented, inconsistent, willy-nilly "open" user interface to be the worst combination of attributes ever expressed on a bitmap display.

I know I am rising to the bait, but it is disheartening to see these gender stereotypes being perpetuated... I am all for computers being attractive to females, but at the expensive of speed and power? For use as a FASHION ACCESSORY? So, what, we should have REAL, POWERFUL computers for boys and FASHION TOYS for girls?

I urge everyone making disparaging comments about the iBook's power (or lack thereof) to post the vital stats of their machine, laptop or otherwise.

Many, if not most, of the "power geeks" that I know are not running bleeding edge machines. They have 300mhz Celerons, 3 GIG drives and 64 Megs of RAM. The iBook stacks up nicely to them.

Get over yourselves. This is not a "chick" machine, and it's insulting to women and Apple to imply so. I've been using computers going on 16 years now (since I was 8) and for the first time I'm considering a Mac. Guess which one? iBook: It's cheap, looks like it has ample power for a notebook, and it isn't a black brick.

The Be people do acknowledge that reverse-engineering the latest Apple systems would work, with or without cribbing from LinuxPPC. However, they feel that they would be on shaky legal ground if they took that route. Apple hasn't lashed out at the free software people, but they do have a history of litigation and hard-headedness when it comes to other companies.

Okay, so if AirPort internet connection works a lot like a cordless phone, does that mean my neighbors can accidentally click on to my frequency? I'm always picking up the phone only to be totally confused by hearing the lady upstairs gabbing about her day.

If this thing supports multiple ocmputers and works up to 150 feet away, that means given my tiny apartment, can my neighbors with the right laptop hop on to my internet connection?

> Note that some of us consider "your" (making a gross > overgeneralization) brand of fragmented, inconsistent, willy-nilly "open" user interface to be the > worst combination of attributes ever expressed on a bitmap display.

Of course you do. You measure everything by an opposite standard: you value consistency over correctness, and you value simplicity over efficiency.

Quite literally, you prefer what is "easy" (consistently simple) over what is "effective" (efficient and correct).

Weaved in, throughout, this philosophy contains self-aggrandizing notions like superior aesthetics, etc., and some other laughable ideas, but the main current is that no compromise is too severe, as long as it is made in the name of those two sacred attributes: simplicity and consistency.

The new iBook looks like those childrens toys you see at the store that you can type your name in and it makes sounds. Even though it may be very powerful, the iBook is something I wouldn't want to take to a job.

hey, read the announcement again - THIS IS A CONSUMER MACHINE. i'll bet your crappy CTX won't plug into an LCD projector either. 99.99% of consumers will never even think of this capability, and they shouldn't have to pay for still more useless features, that's the whole point. i think they've done a really good job of making a somewhat stripped-down notebook that's still very usable. i'd like to see it close to the $1200-1300 originally rumored, but it's not bad.if you need to produce presentations, shell out (and write off) the $2.5k and get the professional version - that's what it's for. When i can scrape up $1500 for a notebook, chances are i'll get a used G3pro book rather than the ibook just because i'll want the expandibility and bigger screen, but it's a choice...sheesh, if only half the people here would READ the stories before posting...

Why is consistency opposed to correctness? Why is simplicity at the cost of efficiency? I do not understand why you think these things are mutually exclusive. There are lots of different ways to make a user interface, but one that ignores the steepness of its learning curve in favor of geek-appeal is doomed to niche success.

OK, the thing about that 160MB RAM expansion is that the RAM slot is a 1.25" long slot. Who cares? Well, current regular 128MB and 256MB modules are 2 inches long. There are also smaller 1.5" 'low profile' modules that fit in the 1.5" slot on the old PowerBook G3s and iMacs. (They have a 2" slot and a 1.5" inch slot for space reasons.) BUT, those 'low profile' modules are about twice as much as a 2" module, because of the increased density. BTW, I am not trying to be comfusing, it is a confusing subject. SO, the 128MB module needed for 160MB of RAM in an iBook would cost about $400, give or take. Am I confusing enough yet?

I know I am rising to the bait, but it is disheartening to see these gender stereotypes being perpetuated... I am all for computers being attractive to females, but at the expensive of speed and power? For use as a FASHION ACCESSORY? So, what, we should have REAL, POWERFUL computers for boys and FASHION TOYS for girls?

If someone offered me the choice between the iBook and a PowerBook, there is no contest - I want the power, not the pretty case. Luckily, I have learned that although I am female, I still have the right to use technology in the same ways as the guys...

No point getting too deep into the whole females-and-technology stuff here, but I can't just let this go by...

(BTW, in my office, the guys were as impressed by the iBook as the women...)

I held one for a little bit- it seemed relatively strong. The rubberized bits around the edges will definitely help with the overall wear and tear and may cushion the blow if it lands on its end. It seemed heavy enough that it could take some abuse, and the lack of a latch means one less thing to break, although I don't know how long the clamshell hatch will last necessarily. I guess I'm skeptical of any laptop's proclaimed durability, but this one did seem to be a little heavier and better protected than most- weight saving was obviously not the primary concern!

You know, I wanted to make the first post to Slashdot from an iBook, but my boss held on to the damn thing so long I had to pass it along before I could load anything on the web browser.

Don't kid yourself. It's MacOS so it's gonna break and malfunction all kinds. What are you going to do when it comes time to upgrade your new iBook? These computers are not made to be hardware configurable. Some team of guys at apple got together and decided what would go into this system. You have little or no control over it. I think this system is great for people that need to use a computer with little or no knowledge but I'm not that person. I like to build my computers from the ground up and compile my kernel to the exact specifications that I like. I install the software that I want to use and I love every second of it. I'm not saying that the iMac and iBook don't have their places I'm just saying they are not for me. It's not about showing off to my friends. It about being in control of the one item that occupies more of my time than anything else. If you think I'm on a high horse let me set you straight. The approach I take is hard. I spend many frustrated hours trying to figure out simple things that Mac's do automatically. But when I'm done I am happy because I have learned how the computer actually works. And I have a system that is tailored to exactly to suit my needs. So please spare me your misguided accusations until you can grow up and make informed ones.

Oh, and as for a product that doesn't assume you're an idiot: How 'bout Linux.

I heard it needs all kinds of enablers even to run the full mac os 8.6. Since linux doesn't have any kind of power saving stuff (afaik), I would imagine it would really suck having to recharge every hour or whatever.

They're not necessarily in conflict. However, when they are, your UI always sacrifices correctness for consistency and efficiency for simplicity.

As for niche success, what do I care? Isn't the quality of an interface of primary import? That's what you Mac people were telling us throughout all of Apple's lean years... now that things look better, you can afford the luxury of honesty?

Well, I guess I was wrong; you'll sacrifice consistency for _some_ things, I suppose.

Fine, that's great, but I bought a crappy little CTX EzBook 20 months ago with damn near the same specs ('cept the processor) for $300 less. And that was 20 months ago. (I think I saw my model on one of those liquidation sites for $700 or so last week...)

I'm calling bullshit on this one.

You're telling me that you got a machine with a 3.2G hard drive, 10/100Base-T Ethernet, 56K Modem, 4MB of VRAM with an ATI Rage Mobility video card, 24-bit color at 800x600, USB, and a hard-to-damage case for $1300? In 1997? I'm not going to mention the support for wireless networking (the antenna is built into the iBook, just the card is missing) or that a 300MHz G3 is leagues faster than anything released in a laptop in 1997.

It's OK to hate Macs, it's OK to hate Apple; everyone has their delusions. But really, don't make stuff up.

This is not for you, mr professional, this is designed solely for the school market. I'll post the ibook faq now and you can check out all the features and see for yourself that this is, in fact, the perfect school computer. Wireless networking, durable (ie, for backpack carrying), no removable stuff to get stolen... look for the post towards the bottom.

You're data is protected by 40-bit encryption. This qoute was found on one of Apple's FAQ [apple.com] regarding the AirPort system.

"Q. What kind of security does AirPort provide? A. AirPort offers password access control and encryption to deliver security equivalent to that of a physical network cable. Users are required to enter a password to log on to the AirPort network--and, optionally, an additional password for access to any other computer on the network. When transmitting information, AirPort uses 40-bit encryption to scramble data, rendering it useless to eavesdroppers."

I guess, for Apple, the price isn't THAT bad... But, maybe I am just a little to "real-estate" hungry to think that 12.1" and 800x600 resolution is enough to use now days. Well, maybe to use, but buying new, I would want more....

Don't get me wrong, most Slashdotters are, including me. Being a geek isn't a bad thing. But most people are not geeks. And most non-geeks are happy to have a "toy" OS that gets the job done. They can do word processing, graphics, web browsing, email, and games, and that's about it. But that's all they are interested in doing. The computer is a tool. It's a very useful tool, but it's still just a tool.

Even those of us who do like to tinker with out systems from time to time still want to be able to hide that complexity when they need to get other work done. When I am writing a paper, checking my email, or playing Starcraft, my "toy" Mac OS works just fine. The interface is much nicer, it's much simpler to set up and use, and it's generally more productive. When I want to tinker, I have an old Mac on which I install LinuxPPC, and then I can tinker to my heart's content.

There's no reason non-geeks should learn to use vi, know a programming language, reformat a hard drive, or edit text-based configuration files. These tasks are not the least bit relevant to their lives, and are simply extra work. An oversimplified interface and glazing over of problems is a good thing for 90% of what people do with computers. If their computer crashes, it doesn't matter to them why it crashed. There's no point in giving them the gruesome details of what failed where and how. They'll just reboot and try again. If it continues failing, they switch apps and/or upgrade. They might run disk doctor occasionally, or ask a more knowledgable friend for help. But for the most part they just want the OS to do as it's told, even if they aren't using it as intended.

A good analogy is a car. For most of us, it's much nicer to have a simple dashboard that gives us a sumarry of what our car is doing than a window that let's us look and the engine and take measurements manually. The mechanically inclined might like rebuilding their engines, but for the rest of us, we are happy to think of our cars as a black box that needs oil changes, fillups, and the rest gets taken care of by the mechanic. Most peoples' lives do not revolve around their computers, any more than around their cars.

It seems to me that FireWire is not buit-in, but must be separately purchased as a PC Card... this is to me the biggest fault of Apple feature-wise, that it is dumping SCSI from iMacs and PowerBooks without replacing it with FireWire.

he really needs to ask consumers what they want. Selling crippled machines with little or no chance of upgradability is one track; the rest of the world is headed along a different one.

OK, correct me If i'm wrong, but wasn't that one of the reasons that everyone said the iMac wasn't going to sell? (Including myself, I will admit...)

People who're bitching about lack of this and that and the other thing need to remember a couple of things:

1) No Firewire: So far Firewire is only in use for high end stuff. For everything else you've got USB and (I assume) IDE. Firewire is a sweet technology, but most consumers don't need stupidly fast Hard Discs, RAID arrays, nor High-End digital cameras.

2) 12.1 inch display: Yeah, I admit I'd like more screen space, but that would jack up the $$. You still get a decent quality screen though.

3) Colours/looks: Guess what, People have different tastes. Just because you don't happen to like how it looks, or you think a particular colour is ugly, dosen't mean everyone else in the world does. Ever looked in a women/teen magazine? Some of the stuff in there is absolutely hideous (IMHO), yet it sells.

4) Upgradeability: People seem to keep losing sight of the fact that this is a consumer portable. Most of the people who're going to buy this don't want to have to upgrade it. I know many people who're still hammering away on their old Classics,SE/30's,[34]86's. Just for the simple fact that it does everything they need it to. In a couple of years when they finally have to do something more, they'll go out an buy another computer, which they'll use for another 8 years. They don't really care (or even know) whether their machine has the latest video card, or has more than X amount of RAM, or supports {insert latest gizmo, gadget or doohicky here}.

To be honest, this consumer portable is a very well, and nice, but what caught my eye and sent my technosterone flowing was the AirPort networking. This was a complete surprise to me, and I've been keeping an eye on things. When they get the wrinkles sorted out of it, this will probably be the most important new Tech to come out of this MacWorld. I know that wireless networks are nothing new, I've been hearing about them since the first PowerBooks came out (remember the 100, 140 and 170?). However, AFAIK this is the first time a computer manufacturer has specifically included support for them (yeah, I know it's $100 for a card, and ~$300 for the hub, so what? $500 for a wireless network? That ain't that bad. Especially since the price is only going to come down. Since it's based on an IE^3 standard, it shouldn't be that hard for 3rd party products to be developed. (If Apple makes it hard, they're only shooting themselves in the foot)

All in all Apple's lined up a pretty spiffy Quartet of products. Lets just hope they can keep it up.

I used to be a die hard Mac person. I mean, right down to knowing every little detail about every machine Apple had sold since 1980. Someone need to know what kind of PRAM battery a IIFX used? I'd be yer guy. (2x 3.6v lith). So I really do like seeing these articles on/. and in the news.

But prices and the OS just really caused me to drift away. 7.5x was an absolute nightmare and 7.6 no real help. Bash 98 to your hearts content, I'll join you, but if I saw "An error of type 11 has just occurred" or "The application "unknown" has unexpectedly quit" one more time I'd have eaten my own spleen. From what I have seen this was around the time Apple really began to lose many of it's more loyal user base.

These new powerbooks look spiffy, certainly, and I really do hope that Apple gains a bit more of a foothold over M$. But with this snooty attitude that no matter what, people will continue to buy their product (not that M$ doesn't take the same 'tude) IMO they will never regain more than cult status. If the new consumer model has even a small amount of upgrade-ability (meaning more than just RAM) and if users will have more than just one OS as an option for them I would consider buying one for my niece.

I'm sorry though, but I just want to kick Mr. Black-turtle-neck-tofu-munchin'-sandle-wearing Steve Jobs right in the kiwis. I saw an interview with him and his wife and they talked about their being healthy vegetable-aryans, and his kid had done something really really good so as a treat Steve gave him a cup of fruit flavored tea. Tea? You're a billionaire, you cheap git, buy the kid a fucking bike ferchrissakes:-?.

As I recall this was the rumor before Apple made the NeXT purchase. Macworld had a big spread about how Be might be the next Mac OS. There apperantly were talks, but Be demanded too much money. The plan was to build Mac complaitibility environment on top of Be the way they did with NeXTStep.

This could've been very cool, although OS X is gonna be very cool as well. OS X is basically a seriously hacked copy of the NeXT OS with a Mac compatibility box ("Classic") to allow Mac apps to run without modification and a stripped-down sub set of the Mac OS API's that allow Mac apps to work under a modern OS environment with only minor alteration. ("Carbon") However, the future of the platform is planned to be the third "box" ("Cocoa"), which is basically the OpenStep API's. So in a sense, Next is the future of the Mac OS. The same thing could have been done with Be's OS-- build a compatinility box for old apps, and develop new apps in Be's native environment.

But in any event, LinuxPPC is an open source product, and given the way open source operates, it's unlikely that Apple could keep details given to LinuxPPC secret if they wanted to. If Be wants to know how the G3 works, they can just look at LinuxPPC's source, or even simpler, ask the LPPC developers. I don't know what the exact problem the Be team had is, but I suspect that they're just lazy and see larger market share on the Wintel side to expend the effort to figure it out. As others have suggested, Intel money can't have hurt either.

However, considering that the kernel now supports the iMac and the Blue G3's, I'd imagine iBook support won't be terribly difficult to do (remember that Apple's working on unifying the architecture so that all the models will eventually share one motherboard). My guess is that it'll support the iBook in a few weeks.

The biggest problem will be adding PPC AGP support to the kernel (needed for the video); that's never been done before. Existing x86 AGP code will help, but there are issues to overcome...

Closed software? Yeah, to some degree. However, take a look at the direction they're headed in. THey've already Open-Sourced Darwin and QuickTime Server; my guess is that thty're testing the waters. If we don't give them a reason to regret this decision, it's likely they'll Open-Source more.

(Then again, there are so many anti-Apple zealots in the OSS community that my guess is that we'll be giving Apple plenty of reason to regret it, jugding from all the Apple-bashing I hear here).

Closed hardware: Again, to some degree. But again, look at the direction they're moving in. They went from NuBus to PCI, a more open standard. ADB to USB. SCSI to FireWire (well, there's a step back, but consider the steps forward). a proprietary ROM to OpenFirmware and no ROM (they're still cleaning out the last vestiges of the ROM, but it should be noted that the versions on the Blue G3's, iBooks, and the latest iMacs contain no OS-level code at all.) Couple this with an Open-Source operating sytstem made by Apple which lets you get the system specs easily.

Over-priced? You're one of those "something for nothing" freaks, I guess; you want a machine which beats the pants off of any comparably-priced PC for the same price as a PC. You're dreaming. It's better, and it deserves a higher price (notice also that the prices have come down; can you imagine what an iBook would have cost three years ago, switching its current specs for equivalent ones of the time?)

And unreliable: compared to Linux, yes. But it's by no means the worst on the market. A properly-maintained Mac will outdo NT in terms of stability and performance (then again, I suppose that isn't saying much).

The biggest one is that computers are powerful because they are programmable.... If you are really going to get the full use out of a computer, you aren't going to do it by just surfing the web, by just using some wordprocessing program to type up a paper.... I am saying that to really be able to use a computer, programs other people have written are not going to perfectly suit your needs.

This is just techie elitism.

People don't need to program their computers. In fact, you program very few of the computers you use.

Other people wrote the programs that run my VCR, my microwave oven and my car engine. Maybe I could think of some reason to reprogram them, but I don't want to and I certain don't want to be required to know how these things work in order to use them. The computer that runs slashdot was programmed by other people and I can't do a damn thing about it. (I'd have used Java Servlets, which are much more efficient than Perl CGI [oreilly.com].)

For the record, I'm perfectly capable of programming the computers I own. I've done assembly programming for microcontrollers in embedded environments. I can debug with a (real) ICE. This makes me considerably more 31337 than computer literacy evangelists like you. Still, embedded programming is a headache and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Back in 1980, an MIT grad student friend of mine told me that there would eventually be two kinds of computers:

The "appliance" that you would just turn on an use with little ability to program or configure. This would be the computer for the "Masses."

The "workstation". This would be like Linux or OS/2. It would be a powerful system that was open to programming (or, in the case of Linux, anything).

In reality, we got three kinds. The third is the common "Office Workstation." This is clunky, broken piece of shit that tries to simultaniously provide a robust progrmaming environment yet be simple to use for the non-technical. This is what Windows is. This is what OS/2 became. This is what Linux is evolving into now (Gnome + E? Yikes!).

I think we should follow my friend's vision. Rather than trying to make Linux easy to use, in general, we should have "Home Linux" and "Office Linux" distros, which are much too rigid for you and me, but simple for people like my uncle Bob.

The LinuxPPC people will probably take a few weeks after introduction to get it to run. If Steve was really serious about the OpenSource movement, he'd give them advance access to one so it'd run Linux on release day. The power consumption probably won't be as good. 8.6 had some dramatic battery life improvements. But there's no reason it wouldn't run eventually. Both the iMac and the PB G3's run Linux just fine.

Um... $300 for the hub, 100 for the card. $400 total. And you can use up to 10 iBooks with each hub. That means that you can wire a home wireless network for under $1000, even if you have half a dozen computers. Pretty spiffy.

The biggest one is that computers are powerful because they are programmable. Not because microsoft has programmed something for them, not because I hacked out something for them, but because anyone can program them.

If I were among the 90% of computer users who are not geeks, I would be bewildered by this attitude. For those people, a computer is no differenct from a toaster. You turn it on and get a job done with it. That's it. Learning to program takes a large investment of time, and I can think of very few jobs that home-written, amateur programs can do better than professional apps. I'd be interested in some examples of things that Joe Sixpack will want to program. I can't think of any.

You seem to have no comprehension of the time and effort it takes to learn to program effectively. Becoming a competent programmer takes more than just learning the syntax of a language. It requires thinking about your computer in a whole new way. For most users, the computer just presents them with a menu of options, and you pick one. How the computer does what it does is irrelevant. You just point and click and the computer does as it's told. Programming, on the other hand, requires systematic and careful thought about precisely how a task should be carried out in a step-by-step fashion. It is non-interactive, and computers are not the least bit helpful when something goes wrong. I shudder at the prospect of teaching my grandfather, my mother, or my sister to program. All of them are plenty smart, but they simply do not have the interest or the patience to learn programming skills.

Learning to program may be required for getting "the most out of your computer." But learning to rebuild your cars engine is likewise necessary for getting "the most out of your car." That does not mean that everyone should learn to rebuild engines any more than we should all learn to rebuild kernals.

Let me repeat myself: not everyone's life revolves around computers. Most people don't care if they are getting the most out of their systems. They want to take advantages of the things that computers are most useful for, and do it as quickly and painlessly as possible. For non-geeks, that means a simple GUI like the Mac OS, and using apps like email and word processing. Getting more out of their computers requires more effort than they are willing to invest. This does not make them stupid, lazy, or ignorant. It simply means that their priorities are different than yours. For most people, email, web browsing, word processing, and games are the only things worth taking the time to learn.

A basic principle of economics is involved here: the division of labor. One of the reason we are so productive is that each person specializes on a specific task and gets really good at it. We geeks are good at making computers go. Other people become good at other things. To expect everyone to learn to program is as silly as expecting everyone to learn to be plumbers or doctors or carpenters. The whole point of having programmers is so *they* can do the programming, and the rest of the population can concentrate on other tasks. I don't plan to learn the ins and out of other peoples' profession, and I don't expect others to learn how to do my job. If someone has a computer problem they can't solve, they should hire a geek to solve it, not try to become a geek themselves.

only two: blueberry and tangerine? i'm disappointed; i was hoping for a gray. too bad.

According to the AppleInsider link [appleinsider.com] in the original article, Apple rushed a batch of them out so they'd have a model to show at this week's MacWorld expo.

It's possible that the blueberry and tangerine ones are the only ones they made in this run; the AppleInsider article says they've been seen "in all five flavors of the iMac, [as well as] in a mysterious smoke gray flavor (totaling 6)".

At least, I hope this is the case; otherwise, I'm getting a blueberry one...

Jay (= (Who has been waiting for months for this machine to be released -- well, that and geting my credit card paid off...)

Unless the card is a standard PC-Card... then it may not matter what system its plugged into, particularly once Linux drivers are around for it, since the drivers can be ported to other architectures...

Yeah, this version of the PowerBook [333 and 400MHz models] have been out since may. The 333 model has 512K L2 backside cache, the 400 has 1MB L2 backside [both on-chip]. The iBook is new and has a 300MHz G3 [actually a 333, reduced for power savings], will come in all 5 iMac colors, ready for 11Mb/sec wireless networking [Apple/Lucent] and does include a 24X CD-ROM, contrary to popular belief. Rumor has it that Apple will soon [this week] introduce 433 and 450MHz models of the PowerBook, and after the initial introduction of this iBook, they may have a faster model with more base RAM [which is upgradeable to 160MB]. And yes, the PowerBooks run LinuxPPC R5 1999 very well. From what I understand, much of the development was done on a PowerBook.

Also, for the guy that mentioned he had no configuration options w/ a new PowerBook...Apple will soon have customizable configurations on the Apple Store. BYOPB man.

How is it a culture that prides itself on non-conventional piercings, extremely casual clothing (or even no clothing, if you read Po Bronson's book) and non-traditional offices decides to get all conservative when it comes to industrial design? If possible, technology should look good and not always look so "serious". The machine will probably not appeal to those who use tech as penis extenders, but that's not necessarily a bad thing -- the drive to making machines look serious and initimidating is probably a good chunk of what keeps women out of the field (women do have the ability to hack, many just have little time for this macho nonsense).

I do cross-platform development on reasonably inexpensive laptops (my own little company, with fairly sizable clients) and I figure I'll be doing my REALBasic, Director/Flash and CodeWarrior stuff on a new iBook soon.

As for id10ts -- yes, it's for id10ts, but realise that they're your moms. Your dads. Your brothers and sisters, boyfriends, girlfriends, and everyone else who isn't a developer or doesn't know their greps from their seds from their awks (and really shouldn't have to). My mom may fall under the category of id10t, but only because she's not a hacker and sometimes finds Windows confusing. However, she's also the Chief of Cardiology at a major hospital in Toronto, and given the sedentary lifestyle of many hackers, may save a geek or two from the bug dev/null in the sky. Strange id10cy, that.

These id10ts are our users. They're the people for whom we write software, and who will hopefully pay us the big bucks. There are a lot of dumb ones out there, but there are also a lot of smart ones, who couldn't give a rat's ass about processes, threads, piping commands, and all the switches for ls or dir, and good for them. If we develop software they can't understand, it's our own fault. Let's ditch this user-hating "high priesthood" mentality, shall we?